Nasty Travel companions may spoil all the fun…
We all love to travel but quite a few of us have made the experience that a nasty travel companion can spoil the fun at times! That is the reason why a lot of people have turned away from scheduled group tours and rather do their own thing, for example by renting a car and driving around their destination on their own. It is easy to do - either you sit down and plan & book your own tour or you turn to a company like Exploring Iceland and  ask them to put together your personal self- drive tour. 

On a small farm in South Iceland lives Vilborg Ástraðsdóttir with her family and lots of farm animals. From early childhood on she has been fascinated by the forms and colors of nature. Born on a farm and raised with the task of taking good care of animals such as herding the sheep during the autumn round up she felt inspired by the mountains,​ ​glacial rivers, mossy hills and wide open landscape.

As the wind blows heavily in Iceland today we are tied to the office but that does not keep us from thinking about going out & doing stuff tomorrow or the day after.  After all here in Iceland people have had to live and enjoy themselves with or despite of the weather since the time of settlement and we know that the good old Vikings did enjoy a ball game called „knattleikr“ but most of their outdoor games were connected to preparing for battle and fighting such as archery, tug-of – war and wrestling. 

If discovering Iceland individually is on your bucket list and you plan to travel around Iceland by car you need to book your accommodation early! A wide range of accommodation is available starting with hostels, guesthouses and farm hotels to the more pricey and upmarket luxury hotels. But if you are looking for something different than the typical self drive car & hotel  arrangement you might want to have a look at our quirky self drive tour! Imagine staying at a Viking hotel, a fisherman´s hut, a wilderness museum or even at the Klettar Tower with perfect views to Mt. Hekla, the glaciers Eyjafjallajökull, Langjökull and Tindfjallajökull. 

For the recent years it has become more and more popular to explore Iceland on an individual basis for example by renting a car and driving around Iceland independently. While all of this is good fun, a few downsides have sadly been acknowledged, mostly in connection with safety and respect for the local environment. We would like to address a few of these points here as we find it vital that both groups - guests and hosts -  reach a good working relationship if we all want to continue to nourish our freedom of travelling in Iceland in the future. 

​There is something special about the relationship of women and horses. And the companionship among women when they go on adventures in the saddle together!
Horse obsession afflicts thousands of girls and women and once you have caught “the horse bug” it will plague you forever. A childhood spent around horses will haunt you all through your later life; it tugs at you until you give in again. You may have to pause for studies, career or having kids – but at some point- in- life the “infection” will flare up one more time! 

We follow the Icelandic tradition in giving the horses a good winter break after a season of riding tours during summer. By end of September/October we take the horse shoes off and release them into their huge winter field of approx. 30 hectares around the farm. There they will roam „free“ for about 3 months before we stable them again for riding. Icelandic Horses are highly social animals that prefer to live in a group. It also suits their strong grazing instinct very well, 

​When you run a small farm going on long holidays isn´t always an easy option since you always need to ask somebody to take care of the livestock. So we usually just take a weekend off to discover and explore new areas in Iceland, check out new accommodation and activities. Although it may only be 3 or 4 days it is just a great way to get out of the farm wellies, see something new, spoil yourself a bit or as they say in German: Have a „Tapetenwechsel“ which translates roughly into „chance of scenery“. 

​From July 27 to August 10. 2014 I celebrated my 50th birthday on a horseback tour in Iceland, riding from North to South - Across Iceland.  We were a group of six riders (including my 15 years old daughter), one driver, one chef and one dog. During some parts of the tour we were accompanied by local guides and partners and that really made the tour fantastic as well quite a good weather. We only got one day of rain, some cold days and some very warm days.  Each of us had 5-6 well trained horses at the age of 7-20 years. We mainly trained them during the winter season but 

Newsflash: “Tourist leaving Iceland heavily traumatized….”

Going to the swimming pool in Iceland is a true Icelandic National sport, we go there to exercise, to relax and to chat with friends and strangers in the hot tub. Icelanders start going to the pool from a very early age. There are baby swimming classes, swimming lessons in school are mandatory and even the smallest village or community has a pool where people meet. The British have their pub, the French their café, we have our local pools. With rising numbers in tourism and rising entrance fees in popular touristic “hot springs” like the Blue Lagoon, more and more tourists are looking with eager eyes into the option of visiting the public local pools. They are clean, lovely and cheap, most